


can you hear the unspoken words (hanging over my head)?

by yesiamsleepy



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: CANON WHO, Canon Divergent, F/F, Soft Supercorp, and they will get that happy ending, kinda angsty, look they're just gay for each other, post-reveal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:27:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24603904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yesiamsleepy/pseuds/yesiamsleepy
Summary: Trust is hard to find, even harder to regain once broken. But not impossible.Maybe love is not always about trying to fix something that is broken. Maybe it’s about starting over and creating something better. A series of conversations between Kara and Lena that sets them on the path of finding their way back to each other.OrThe 4 times Kara talks and the 1 time she listens
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 8
Kudos: 37





	can you hear the unspoken words (hanging over my head)?

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set sometime after Lena finds out that her best friend moonlights as a superhero. I have purposefully kept the details of the reveal vague, because I have no idea what is happening in canon and, frankly, I don't want to deal with that mess. 
> 
> As always, everyone say thank you to [@happyandstupidotter](https://happyandstupidotter.tumblr.com/) for painstakingly proof reading the fic, helping with the title and generally making it readable.

“You can use his name, you know.”

Lena regretted those words as soon as she said them but there was no way to take them back. Predictably, Kara faltered, the story she was telling about Superman’s cut-off midway. Her hands were still raised frozen mid-gesture, as she turned to scrutinize Lena’s words through her expression.

The brunette winced internally. 

After months of cold looks and even colder words, they had finally reached a point where every interaction wasn’t laced with barbs meant to pierce the other’s mask of invulnerability, a task made infinitely easier by the fact that they had spent months carefully dropping their walls around each other. And now every harsh word laid Lena bare, unable to defend herself, even as she showed no outward sign of her turmoil. 

Lena had tried her best, though, to once again build her guard up. She surrounded herself with fences, lined with spikes, that not even Kara Danvers could penetrate without hurting herself. And she _had_ hurt. Just as Lena had meant her to but, true to form Kara Danvers refused to back down. And bit by bit, they were picking up the pieces of their shattered friendship. Together.

It was two steps forward, one step back. Kara was still hesitant over the particulars of her identity. Case in point, Kara’s pointed refusal to use her cousin’s name in her presence. Instead she chose to use his other alias, _Kal_ , through what had been an admittedly funny, if long-winded story about some camping trip they had been on. _Why_ two super-powered beings had decided to go camping in the middle of nowhere and refused to use their powers to get through the trip, Lena had no idea, but it made for an amusing scene. And Kara, as always, was a good storyteller.

The nagging sensation of being lied to, however, was hard to get over. Every time Kara used her cousin’s pseudonym, Lena had to clench her teeth to stop herself from blurting something she would regret. _Clearly, she should have clenched harder._

_Stupid._

Despite Kara claiming she was ready to be honest about herself, she still clung to her secrets. It was something Lena had been trying to accept, but was finding harder and harder to. Even as Kara proclaimed honesty and trust, she refused to partake in the same values. Sometimes she would be evasive, sometimes she would simply run, claiming an emergency leaving Lena with gritted teeth, unable to call out the lie for fear of destroying the tenuous truce. All that restraint, now wasted, because Lena couldn’t keep her damn mouth shut.

Lena waited for the rambling to start, the half-cocked excuse that would be followed by a hasty exit. But she refused to make it easier. Maintaining steady eye contact, she slowly sipped her whiskey sour as she waited for the inevitable retreat.

It never came.

Kara regarded her slowly, searching for something but unable to find it. If she were any drunker, Lena would think she was trying to look into her very soul. She valiantly suppressed a shudder. 

After what seemed like an eternity, Kara finally spoke, “What do you mean?”

“Superman. _Kal_ . You can use his name, you know.” She replied evenly. If Kara was going to play dumb, she was going to make it so clear even someone as incompetent as Edge could understand it. “You don’t have to keep using that pseudonym. I know he is your cousin. I _know_ who he is.”

At this Kara’s frown seemed to deepen, the crinkle at her forehead belying her evident confusion. It was such a Kara Danvers gesture, that for a moment Lena had the, quite frankly, insane urge to reach out and smoothen it. She quickly squashed that desire. Thankfully, Kara’s next words were enough to drive away the bizarre nostalgic fondness and replace it with irritation.

“What are you talking about? I have been using Kal’s name. Weren’t you listening?”

At one point Lena might have found Kara’s confusion adorable, but those days were long in the past.

“What I mean, _Supergirl,_ ” Lena snapped, taking no small pleasure at Kara’s visible flinch at being addressed by her title, “is that I am _intimately_ familiar with Mr. Kent’s work and your familiar ties with him. You don’t have to make an extra effort to hide his identity.” _After all, he wasn’t the one who spent years lying to me._

“Oh.”

_Yes, ‘oh’ indeed._

Lena decided to get up and begin putting away the remnants of their time together. Clearly the evening was at a close. She had made her point and there was no use delaying the inevitable. A tiny, hidden part of her may have wished it did not have to be so, but she had become an expert in locking that part of her in carefully constructed boxes and throwing away the key. _Brainy could keep his analogies, she was dealing just fine._

She took her time washing her dishes, giving Kara enough opportunity to manufacture an excuse to leave. The words never came. Unable to bear the silence Lena turned around and was promptly pinned by an unwavering stare.

To her surprise, Kara had ensconced herself more firmly on the couch. The hero had kicked off her boots carelessly as she drew her legs closer to herself. One knee hugged her chest as the other stretched out along the cushions, half hidden by her cape. Blonde head rested on the knee, carefully supported by the palm of her right hand as she regarded Lena through half-lidded lashes. Despite herself, Lena nearly took a step back as the gaze threatened to unravel all of Lena’s carefully constructed boxes. Kara patted the seat next to her, a clear indication that contrary to her belief, the conversation was far from over. There was no choice but to obey.

It was a long time before the blonde finally spoke, the whispered words seeming to come from memories far away, tucked into the deep recesses of her mind.

“It’s because that’s his name. Or at least, it’s the name I knew him by.”

It was Lena’s turn to be confused now. She frowned at Kara, trying to process this new piece of information. Her confusion must have been evident on her face because it caused Kara to grace her with a smile. Not her usual blinding grin, but a small sad one, nearly causing Lena’s traitorous hand to reach out - to do what she didn’t know. She only stopped it in time with a herculean effort, though not before Kara had caught the small movement. The smile widened a bit, and if Lena’s heart sped up a little, well, she was only human.

“He was named on Krypton, Kal-El, after our great-grandfather.” Kara continued. “I was at his naming ceremony, you know. He was such a cute fussy baby. Cried throughout the day except when I would hold him. Somehow, he would always calm down in my lap.”

In the quiet of the night, the blonde’s words had taken on a dreamlike quality and Lena found herself unable to deny the pull. She inched closer, slowly, so as to not break the spell. 

She needn’t have bothered to be so careful. Kara did not even look up, her attention fixed at a distant point in time on a long gone planet, millions of galaxies away. Her eyes shone in the dim light, clearly indicating that the memories she now traversed were happy ones.

“Uncle Jor kept joking that if he liked me so much I could have him. I was ready to take him up on his offer, till Kal peed on me.”

Kara grinned as Lena let out an unintentional bark of laughter at this piece of information. It felt good to talk about her home, the place where she once lived, the people she had loved. She wished she could end the story there, on one of the last good days she had. Lena’s laughter petered out as the mood shifted.

“The quakes started a week later. Initially we ignored them. Krypton had shifting plates and the occasional tremors weren’t uncommon. All our buildings were designed to absorb the vibrations without collapsing, but these kept getting larger and _larger_. Soon, cracks started to appear.

“The council told us not to worry. So we didn’t. And then, suddenly, my parents were waking me up in the middle of the night. Telling me to get on the ship. I remember thinking maybe it was a surprise adventure. My father did that sometimes, surprised us with trips.”

Kara’s voice was trembling by now, the strain of holding her words steady clearly visible on her face. Lena did not dare make a sound. Sometime during the story, her palm had become entangled with the blonde’s, clearly having a mind of its own. She gently squeezed, trying to offer whatever comfort she could. Clearly she made the right choice as Kara threw her a watery smile. A tiny bit of tension released from her shoulders as she squeezed back. 

It occurred to Lena, her grip was not as casual as it seemed. Had it been anyone else, Lena would have described it as tightly clenched, but the blonde must have been carefully regulating her strength so as to not crush Lena’s hand. Suddenly, so many of their casual encounters were coloured in a new light. _How much did Kara have to be aware of while touching her?_

Before she could go down the rabbit hole of mental calculations, Kara’s voice pulled her back.

“They led me to my father’s work room, his lab, if you want to call it that. Uncle Jor was already there with Kal and well-- I guess you know what happened next,” Kara shrugged, fiddling with the edge of her cape with her free hand. The other remained firmly ensconced in Lena’s grasp. 

Lena nodded. She did. Superman had described it extensively to the press when he first donned the cape. The last child of a lost culture, sent to Earth in a last ditch effort by his parents to save their son. His retellings had evoked the sympathy of even a few staunch xenophobes. _How could you hate a child trying to survive._

But his stories had lacked the clear anguish, the gut-wrenching pain that was so unmistakably visible on Kara’s entire frame. The blonde had curled in on herself, unconsciously trying to protect herself from a blow that would never come. And suddenly Lena realized what she had always known, but never grasped. Superman had never lost a culture, a planet, nor his friends and family. You cannot miss what you never had.

But Kara clearly had.

“I am sorry,” Lena murmured. It seemed entirely inadequate, but it was all she to offer at the moment. “I can’t even imagine.”

“I am too.”

Lena raised her eyebrows at that, but the blonde offered no explanation, choosing instead to continue with the rest of the story. Her pod had been knocked off course by the blast and she had ended up in a timeless dimension. _The Phantom Zone_ she called it. Lena had difficulty wrapping her head around the concept, and any other time she would have been itching to figure out the physics behind such a space. But this was not the time for a scientific explanation. 

She wished she could unspeak the words from just a few moments ago, take back the thoughtless ire. But she was powerless to protect against the past, both the near and the distant. 

“By the time I reached Earth, I was twenty-four years too late.” Kara’s breath came in large gulps, fraught with effort of keeping her emotions in check. “By the time I met him again, Kal-El had already become Clark Kent.” 

A single tear rolled down her cheek.

“And I did not know him.”

Lena could feel her heart breaking in two with that statement. For all her proclaimed expertise on compartmentalizing emotions into neat little boxes, she was shit at utilizing any of them when it came to Kara.

_Maybe there was something to what Brainy had said._

The cape had now made its way to both their laps by now and consequently, they had shifted closer to make sure it covered both of them. The hero had always been warmer than an average human, another trait that Lena only realized after the truth had come out. It was a tiny, almost inconsequential detail, but somehow it had affected her more than it logically should have.

_Were they really close or was it alien physiology tricking her brain?_

_Did Kara hugging her actually feel nice or was she reacting to the heat?_

And on and on till all of her memories were tinged with doubt.

Until now.

Because right now, sitting next to Kara, engulfed in her heat, she couldn’t understand how she had ever thought that her stupid analytical brain could ever hope to conjure the sheer comfort of Kara’s presence. And all she wanted to do was give some of the comfort back.

Their clasped hands had never parted. Lena wasn’t sure how but she was grateful for it. She turned towards Kara, arms raised. For the briefest moment, she wondered if her gesture would even be accepted, but before she could begin worrying in earnest, she was met with an armful of Kryptonian. 

Lena let out a quiet _oof_ at the sudden force, arms going back to tightly encircle the blonde. No words were spoken, the quiet only broken up by Kara’s sniffles. 

Looking back, it made a lot of sense. Kara’s revelations had given Lena more pieces of the puzzle, like how Kara would always make an odd expression whenever the topic of Superman came up, or how Supergirl’s motto was so distinct from Superman’s. It made sense because it was so uniquely Kara. In a way it gave her back her friend.

When the brunette had discovered who Supergirl really was, it had shattered her world because she lost her friend. How could she trust someone she didn’t know?

But Kara’s compassion, her love, her hopes - all those tiny qualities that made her uniquely who she was were still there. They were just now thrown into a new light. She only had to learn them. There was still a lot to be said, a lot of hurt to make up for. But for the first time Lena had hope.

And when Kara finally pulled away from her with a quiet wet laugh, looking a million times lighter, Lena saw the same hope reflected back.

The hope that they would get through this. Together.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed reading that as much I did writing.
> 
> Now, for more pressing concerns.
> 
> In solidarity with the millions of people fighting to dismantle the current system of racial abuse, I would like to offer my support. In exchange for donating to any of the BlackLivesMatter charities or bail funds, I will write a short (under 1000 words) fic featuring supercorp for you based on a prompt of your choice. Any amount helps. You can find more information **[here](https://yesiamsleepy.tumblr.com/private/620340500477739008/tumblr_t5NWv5nXuKomNqIrQ)**
> 
> Just DM me the details or leave a comment and I will get back to you.
> 
> Come yell me at [@yesiamsleepy](https://yesiamsleepy.tumblr.com/)


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